Cannes rolls out the red carpet for 72nd edition of film festival

Date created : 14/05/2019 - 15:28Latest update : 14/05/2019 - 15:49

The Cannes Film Festival opens Tuesday for a 72nd edition of the glamorous two-week "quinzaine". Twenty-one films are in competition this year on the French Riviera for the coveted Palme d'Or as Oscar-winning Mexican director Alejandro Gonzales Iñarritu heads a jury of luminaries.

This year's festival poster, unfurled at the Palais des festivals, is a picture of late French New Wave filmmaking pioneer Agnès Varda, who died in March at the age of 90, shown shooting her debut feature, 1955's "La Pointe Courte," peering through the lens of a raised camera perched on the back of a technician. Varda was given an honorary Palme d'Or in 2015.